


Black Pawn, White Knight

by Azar



Series: Playing Pieces [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Myth Arc, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azar/pseuds/Azar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marita Covarrubias reflects on her life and on the man who changed her perspective forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Pawn, White Knight

**Author's Note:**

> I don't remember exactly when I wrote this, but I remember why: from her first appearance, Marita was treated as a "threat" to the Mulder/Scully relationship, and that was about all anyone cared about, but I remember liking her from the first. Following the example of a few brave souls who paved the way, this was my attempt to give her a more complex character and motives than most of the fandom was willing to credit her with.

I don't know when I started thinking of my life in terms of a chess game. Maybe it was when I played chess for the first time at the age of twelve and discovered it was the only thing I'm good at. I'm not even good at lying, no matter how often I may do it. If he weren't so naive, he would have seen through my charade long ago, but they knew when they sent me to him that he would not. 

Perhaps it was when my father's best friend, my 'uncle,' ordered him murdered. That was when I realized I was born to be a pawn in this game. Conceived to it, nurtured in the darkness, never knowing the light so I could not long for it. It was a destiny I never questioned until I met the white knight. If only I had never glimpsed that spark... 

The night my father gave his life for him, I was watching from a distance. Then, I didn't understand why he'd walked away from our world and died in the place of the broken spirit that fell out of that van to be cradled by a titian-haired angel. Only after watching the gradual resurrection of the white knight's faith, guided by his fiery guardian, did I understand. Only then, in the face of my uncles' frustration and desperate planning to crush him again did I comprehend why my father chose another man's son over the daughter who betrayed him. 

My meeting with him was orchestrated from that night. They knew that when they found and silenced his source, another one would rise, and that rising must be circumvented at any cost. 

I knew the man they found and killed to finally put me in that place--for years he had hidden so completely within the shadows that even the shadows could not find him because they thought him one of their own. Only an old promise drew him out, to assume his dead friend's protege. A reluctant warrior, he knew he would die for someone else's cause. I was there when he was shot down, there to read the final, desperate message written in his own blood, there to warp its meaning to serve the cause for which I had long been a living sacrifice. 

I remember what went through my mind the day the knight first came to me. This man, standing before me was waiting for me to crush his hopes. He expected to hear what he had always heard--no proof. That time would come, I was told, but not yet. So I played my role and gave away one piece of our secret to gain his trust and thus protect the rest. Black pawn take white knight, check. 

I never expected to see what I could have been in his eyes. 

He was never my knight. His Lancelot served that flame-haired Guinevere who had saved him, and the Arthur that both feared their love would betray was their quest, their common passion for the truth. Like Elaine, I might have had the chance to guard his shield, but never his heart. I could even set myself adrift on that lonely river to Camelot, but never reach it alive. 

My uncles watch me even more carefully now, since they know I have the strength to betray them for his sake. My life, which they saved, is forfeit to their whim; though I may now be immune to the conqueror we serve, I am not immortal. And so much has changed since I wrestled with that devil and survived only because the renegade, my lover whom I had also betrayed, bargained for his own life with the salvation for mine. The man who bought my life back is now dead. He died for the same betrayal as my father and my predecessor, the betrayal I will not be allowed to make again. 

We almost won. I say 'we' because I am still a black pawn, if a reluctant one now. And the turnkey of our short-lived victory was a simple chess match. We almost captured the white queen, but in doing so inadvertently led the knight to his unholy Grail. 

Ultimately, we failed because the board on which we all play is no longer as simple as these patterned squares. The black kings that my uncles and I sold our souls to serve may now know that we held back one precious instinct: survival. If we can win their trust again, then Faustus may yet live and escape damnation for a little while. Or if the white knight and his queen can rally their army of angels, they may save us all. 

Soon, I go forth again to betray him. My soul, burned too black for faith, nevertheless prays that I will fail. 


End file.
